Coeur d'Alene Catholic School Closures of 1971 Revisited in Local Column

When Sister Superior M. Mariel announced on March 6, 1971 that the Immaculate Heart of Mary would close its three Coeur d'Alene schools in June, the news hit Catholic families across the city with the force of a thunderclap. Dave Oliveria's column, published March 8, revisits that seismic moment in local education history, drawing on Coeur d'Alene Press archives to reconstruct what was lost.

The closures swept away three institutions at once: IHM Academy, the Catholic high school, and two parish grade schools, St. Pius X and St. Thomas. The Academy's high school and nunnery had occupied Indiana Avenue between Ninth and 10th streets, in buildings that traced their lineage to Fort Sherman, having originally served as the post's hospital and opera house before the Sisters took them over.

What made the announcement sting so sharply was the stature IHM had built in the years just before. Coach Gene Boyle's Panthers were a dominant force in North Idaho athletics through the 1960s. The boys' basketball program won back-to-back state 4A titles in 1967 and 1968. The football team was more remarkable still, stringing together 33 consecutive wins across four undefeated seasons before finally falling to Lakeland High. That rivalry was sharp enough that historian Robert Singletary, a former Lakeland teacher, still recalled the pregame slogan from the September 21, 1968 matchup decades later: "Shut the door at 34."

Archive photos from the era capture the school's vitality. In 1964, IHM principal Sister Avellina is pictured lobbing a football to Boyle, surrounded by cheerleaders Jane Lauf, Kathleen McMurray, Barb Whiteley, Linda Larsen and Ann Matson. By 2000, alumni including Ken Koep of the Class of 1962, the Rev. George Rassley, and classmates Kathy Montgomery and Linda Ely were gathering to plan an all-school reunion, still bound to a place that had been gone for nearly three decades.

The physical campus did not sit vacant long. The Coeur d'Alene School District leased the IHM property after the closure, then later purchased it outright. The replacement buildings were converted into Sorensen School and district administrative offices, giving the old Catholic grounds a second life inside the public school system.

The column's timing lands 55 years and two days after Sister Superior M. Mariel's announcement, a reminder that institutional memory in Coeur d'Alene runs deep, particularly when it involves schools, rivalries, and a winning streak that Lakeland High finally ended.